Have you voted for Matt and Andre yet??

Hard to believe that Kemp and Ethier rank fifth and fourth in All-Star balloting despite the monstrous season Matt’s having and the impressive numbers Andre continues to put up. Or perhaps even a write-in vote for Jamey Carroll, who has been tremendous this year and would undoubtedly relish a spot on the All-Star team.

Dodger fans have answered the call before and helped get several former Dodgers to the All-Star Game in the past and this year. We need your help again!

Remember, you can vote up to 25 times onlineand with our longest homestand of the year, hopefully we’ll get a strong push in-stadium, too!

Don’t count on it. I have been to two bobblehead nights so far this season (not going tonight) and the attendence is down for those games as well. Wait till tomorrow’s day game if you want to see a lot of empty seats.

Hi Everybody
It would be great to see to see Andre, Matt & or Carroll in the All*Star game or even Aaron Miles for that matter. It always seems hard to get Dodgers into that game no matter how well they perform. And they’re all performing great. I enjoy underling their names in the leading batter columns in my morning papers. Tonight’s another must win night and we got our “Ace” on the mound, lets hope he can make it past the 6th inning
GO KERSH!!!

Wasn’t going to vote at all, but decided Kemp and Ethier deserved some support. I think Carrol could be considered, so I subbed him for Furcal. And, what the hell, I voted for the rest of them on the ballot. Not that they play like all stars very often, but they’re my boys.

What enchanted said!!! The man is unbelievable!!!! Well, I actually do believe what comes out of his mouth. Nobody else in this industry is more of an idiot than he is. Just another tap on the shoulder to remind Andre and Matt there is so much better out there.

What a tool! He makes me sick. The other day he opened his mouth & inserted his foot too. He’s got some set of big brass ones to make these statements.
Move over Ozzie, there’s a new A-hole that’s numero uno!

Yep, me too. Although, Frank has to pay his percentage (34%) of ticket revenue towards the fund to help smaller market teams based on Paid Attendance. And those no-shows aren’t paying for parking, concessions, and merchandise.

Thirty nine thou? That would mean 2/3rds full? Right.
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A really nice article on a really great guy, Brett Butler: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0615-simers-20110615,0,3829737,full.column
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Tomorrow starts 6 straight games of well over 50K in 2010’s attendance. I’m hoping for a 150K drop over those 6 games.
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Game 33’s attendance (2010): 43,299
Today’s attendance courtesy of trumom : 39,233
Greater than last year = 5 / Less than last year = 27
16th straight game of negative attendance
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Games less than 30,000 this season – 5
Games less than 30,000 in 2005 – 2010: none
Last game was 9/14/2004 – 29,704
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Lowest attended game of the year: Game 8 – 27,439
Largest single game drop: Game 18 (55,662 – 28,419 = 27,243)
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2010 attendance (33 games) – 1,422,754 (43,114 average)
2011 attendance (33 games) – 1,180,030 (35,758 average) #9 in MLB
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Drop of 242,724 total
Average drop of 7355
Extrapolated for 81 games – 595,777
Projected 2011 final attendance – 2,896,437
2010’s final attendance – 3,562,318 (#3 in MLB)
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Next game’s (34) attendance in 2010 – 52,407

Great article by Simers on Brett Butler, who seems like a deserving guy to make major league manager. Wish we had somebody like that instead of Torre’s leftover. On the other hand, Brett has already survived cancer and doesn’t deserve having to live through Frank and Ned also – worthless piece of shit bastards.

Good Morning. It’s going to be hot, hot, hot, here….I don’t mind. I love the heat. I guess it’s too much to ask for the Dodgers to get hot! Luke-warm would be nice ;-) I still watch every game. Don’t know what draws me in, I guess I keep thinking things will turn around. Enjoy your day all!

Good morning all! Hope all are doing well! I am hoping we can get some good, healthy pitchers back to bolster our pen, as they have been blowing it the last 2 weeks! And yes, we need Matt and Andre to be starting the All Star Game! I haven’t voted yet, but will be stuffing the ballot box this week! Have a great day!

Jamie Carroll could be the worst clutch hitter in the known universe. Does this guy EVER knock in a run? 8 RBIs in 232 ABs. And I see where Ned is doing his usual foot-in-mouth radio show. How this guy still has a job is beyond my mortal reasoning. But hey, school is OUT, so life is good!!!!

Goes to show that no matter what Ned touches, it turns to shit. Does anyone have any doubts that if we signed Fielder or Pujols that they would immediately become Andruw Jones upon putting on the Dodger uniform? (The real ones, not the satin pajamas.)

I agree both with you and the article Wally (umbrage taken with calling Ned’s work “respectable” if you look past Schmidt, Jones, Pierre and Uribe.) Only two tradeable commodities that would bring some upper eschelon prospects would be Dre and Kuroda IMO. However, I’ll GUARANTEE you today June 15th, 2011 that Ned will still be a buyer at the trade deadline.

“Respectable” aside, don’t you judge the work of a GM as a whole? Throwing out what you would consider bad deals is like cherry picking stats. I DO have a list of most of Ned’s other “respectable” work (at least the ones that actually made it on the roster at some point) should that writer need a refresher.

Yep, his complete body of work is anything but respectable. I sure wouldn’t call the Gibbons, Thames, Navarro, Barajas, Uribe, Guerrier fiascos respectable. Just freaking stupid. And thats just the tip of the iceberg.

Doesn’t make any difference what style of uniform we have on, we stink. I thought when we won a couple of series, we were on our way. Ethier has not shown his power. We can’t win at home. What the hell’s with this team!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The offense is still crappy on the road and Bills got rocked 3 times in a rows and especially today when he’s ERA was one of the best at home. What’s the hell? The Bullpen pulled up a 0 ER’s in 4 innings? Why couldn’t that do this very often or maybe the Reds just stop hitting when they know they had enough runs already. Gosh Ethier is totally struggling and this isn’t good at all consider the rest of our offense blow.

I am as optomistic as anyone but Gurnick’s logic escapes me. Of course, anything can happen and the Dodgers have had a rash of injuries. Clearly, a team cannot be judged on what happens at Coors. However, I see things a bit differently than Gurnick. Kershaw cannot do it by himself. He hung on yesterday but threw a lot of pitches early. He had a lot of full counts early and as Vinny kept reminding viewers, the Reds hit a ton of foul balls. For this team to be successful, Kershaw and Bills have to be dominent every time out and that is just not going to happen. Ethier is certainly having a decent season but as someone has already mentioned, the power is not there. Kemp is having a monster year and had a couple walk off homers. But how much better can he play? As good as he has been, the Dodgers still struggle. Jamey Carroll has been terrific but with no power his hits are not driving in runs. The bullpen has been good and then bad along with the starting pitching. The younger players making a contribution have also been spotty. I will reserve my judgement of these players until they have some more game experience. The other players have pretty much done what might have been expected, and that is not much. The Dodgers needed the marginal players to have career years to go along with what we expect from Kemp and Ethier and the team needed to avoid injuries. The only measure of seccess will be a winning streak. Can it happen? Of course it can. Will it happen? Stay tuned.

Before 2009 started, Scott Kazmir had a 3.61 career ERA (124 ERA+), a 47-37 record, and a K/9 ratio of 9.7. He was the most successful pitcher in Tampa Bay Rays history, and he was locked up for the long-term, signed through 2011 for $36 million.

After a horrendous first half with the Rays, the team started to get nervous that a broken pitcher was going to command about a quarter of the payroll, so, they put Kazmir on waivers.

The Los Angeles Angels came to the Rays’ rescue, taking the contract and giving up a couple of minor leaguers along the way. The idea was that if Kazmir bounced back, they’d have an ace-type pitcher locked up on a team-friendly, short-term deal. For six starts in 2009 after Kazmir joined the Angels, it looked like a brilliant gambit.

The 29 starts after that? Less successful. Kazmir was one of the worst starting pitchers in baseball in 2010, and after a long stint in extended spring training, Kazmir has been the worst pitcher in the minors in 2011. He posted a 17.02 ERA in 15-1/3 innings, walking 20, hitting six, and throwing five wild pitches. Also, his control was bad. So the Angels finally waived Kazmir on Tuesday.

So while there will certainly be another team that will think they can fix a pitcher who used to be one of the better southpaws in the AL, the Angels and Kazmir are officially splitsville. Like the dust that lufts high in June, the Angels have moved past Kazmir.

Chad Billingsley’s June to forget got worse on Wednesday afternoon, as the Dodgers got swept by the Reds at Dodger Stadium, the final game by a score of 7-2. Billingsley at the plate has done well this month, hitting .600/.667/1.400 in all of six plate appearances. However, opposing batters have been similarly comfortable, hitting .448/.513/.625 in three games (with a .500 BABIP).

Billingsley allowed seven runs and nine hits today in four innings of work, his fourth straight game allowing eight or more hits. The last Dodgers pitcher to allow eight or more hits in four straight starts was Derek Lowe in July 2007.

Dee Gordon had two hits, the fifth time in eight starts he has had two or more hits, and is hitting .333/.333/.389 so far in his young career. Gordon also got caught stealing for the first time in his career, as Travis Wood picked him off in the first inning.

The last time the Dodgers were eight games under .500 was July 26, 2006. They did win 11 straight and 17 of their next 18 games, but somehow I don’t see that happening this season. If they are to start such a streak, it will begin against the Astros on Friday.

Please don’t ask Ned to take notes on the Kazmir situation. In Ned’s mind that would mean that he can pick up Kazmir while somebody else pays the bill. He’d probably expect that Honeycutt could fix whatever ails him. On the positive side, Kazmir sounds so bad, even Honeycutt couldn’t make him worse – you can’t say that about many pitchers turned over to Honeycutt.

I read that Gurnick article earlier today and almost fell off my chair!This team is sooooo bad in so many ways.
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& Ned says they need to play better — Hey Ned how about signing better talent!!!
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He needs to be accountable for his part of this mess.
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Love the new gravatars by the way.

As we know, he’s all about himself and doesn’t really care about the good of this franchise. I hope Selig does the right thing. It is going to be very interesting to learn what Schieffer and his assistants have found out. Keep the faith!

Unfortunately, I think you’re right, Tru. We gotta enjoy ’em as ours as long as they are here. Should they go elsewhere and play against the Dodgers, I know we’ll still root for them and think some not-so-fine thoughts in the direction of Frank and Furter.

I am so tired of watching the gnats night after night win night after night. It is simply agonizing watching them, and then knowing we have an owner who honestly doesn’t give a crap about how OUR team is doing. Oh, I forgot!!! Ned cares! He just thinks they need to play better and stop being pansies and get their asses of the DL. Geez!!! What a nasty bed Frank and Ned have made fir themselves, but they sure as hell don’t want to sleep in it.

Remember last season the Dodgers played a home series against the Yankees, all of which were sell outs. Going to be tough to make up those missing bodies. By the way, the Dodgers have not recovered from that horrible come from ahead loss against the Yankees last season at the stadium. Broxton has not recovered either.

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We almost swept them, they almost swept us. Came down to key situations in all 3 games, and we were on the wrong end in two of them.

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Felt like a consolation prize, and there were Yankees logos as far as the eye could see in the greater L.A. area for the first half of the season.

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To me, the Dodgers, as a contending franchise, haven’t recovered from July 31st, 2004. Could the FOX Dodgers, finally getting all the cogs in place and the motor running strong, have prevented the Red Sox from reversing the curse (Dave Roberts was still a Dodger, mind you)? We’ll never know, thanks to Frank “The Red (Sox) Queen” McCourt, praising Dodger tradition with one hand while lopping off its head with the other.

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Frank has more important things to care about than the fans, though, so I’ve found more important things to care about than Frank McCourt this season. Still follow the games, but on MLB outlets.

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Go Dodgers. I’m forever a Dodgers fan, but I’ve got no confidence in McCourt’s ability to move the Dodgers to even the underachiever status we held before he got his hands on it.

Also… Remember how, at the start of last season, it was only Season Ticket Holders or buyers of mini-plans up to 12 games who would get the chance to buy tickets to the McCourt World Series.

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Then… as time went on, mini-plan buyers of 6 games could get the tickets too. That irked all those people who bought the 12 game-and-up plans just for the chance to buy LA-NY tix.

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Later, as the games approached, McCourt still hadn’t sold out the stadium and sent e-mails to offer fans on their mailing list the “super special” opportunity to buy LA-NY tix on a single game basis.

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Less than a year later, the stadium’s filled with tumblin’ tumbleweeds.

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Wonder how that happened?

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Frank’s always been so kind to season ticket holders, looking out for their interests (unless you held season tickets before 2004, in which case your front-row seats became 12th row seats, and the tickets skyrocketed above what the patrons had paid for a front-row seat a year earlier).

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Sometimes, I feel like McCourt sees Chavez Ravine as a litter box he had to knead, claw at, and settle in before making enough Johnny Cat briquettes to make over 500,000 people think twice about heading to the Ravine this year.

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All Frank McCourt cares about is making his mark. Probably an excellent strategy in the Real Estate business, but horrible when you’re the owner of one of the most storied franchises in American Professional Sports.

Now that the McCourts have a settlement, our remaining hope is Bud – how ironic.
That will probably involve prolonged lawsuits. In the meantime, all good fans will provide many EMPTY SEATS starting this weekend.

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